Bell Digest v930911p2

From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer)
To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest)
Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Sat, 11 Sep 1993, part 2
Reply-To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RuneQuest Daily)
Sender: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM
Precedence: junk

The RuneQuest Daily and RuneQuest Digest deal with the subjects of
Avalon Hill's RPG and Greg Stafford's world of Glorantha.

Send submissions and followup to "RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM",
they will automatically be included in a next issue.  Try to change the
Subject: line from the default Re: RuneQuest Daily...  on replying.

Selected articles may also appear in a regular Digest.  If you 
want to submit articles to the Digest only,  contact the editor at
RuneQuest-Digest-Editor@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM.

Send enquiries and Subscription Requests to the editor:

RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Henk Langeveld)

---------------------

From: 100270.337@CompuServe.COM (Nick Brooke)
Subject: "More sense than that White Moon stuff..."
Message-ID: <930910234521_100270.337_BHB41-2@CompuServe.COM>
Date: 10 Sep 93 23:45:22 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1633

__________
Henk said:
[Re:]
>> Thus the return of the White is the rebirth of the full Yelm Emperor.

> How I like this!
> Makes a lot more sense than that white moon stuff...

Slapped wrists for not listening in class, Henk. My God Learner slave 
proposed this back in X-RQ-ID-807 on 18th May:

> Yeah, it would make sense (says my God Learner slave) for the Godtime's 
> Perfect Sun to have been White.  Then it fragments into three.  The New
> Sun (which rose at the Dawning) was only the Yellow fragment of the
> original. Now the Waertagi are back, there's a chance we can get the 
> Blue Moon under control and recreate the Perfect World.

Now, pay attention! (Or am I just ahead of my time?)

________________
Greg Fried said:

> I HATE (well, snore at) the present spirit combat system!  Shouldn't
> spirit combat involve as many interesting options as real combat?!

Seconded. The current system is dull. The RQ4 proposal is more number- 
crunching, and still dull. Nearest approach to a colourful spirit combat 
system I saw was in an old RuneGlitch -- battle magic spells damaging 
visible spirits, so we could fight them with Bladesharps etc. rather than 
by abstract POW-wrestling. Ideas, anyone?

> And who but a G-L would devise such a ritual as in Masters of Luck and
> Death to keep himself immortal?

Delecti the Necromancer was an EWF type, and devised something which is 
functionally identical to the Pharaonic system... That confuses but does 
not answer your question.

___________
Paul wrote:

> "On the Properties of the Elements", by Clement Longhair

The central idea of which (light striving upwards) had independently 
occurred to me as a solution to the Gloranthan "horizon problem," and 
therefore *must* be true . Of course, casting Farsee to "energise" your 
vision would therefore increase line-of-sight, regardless of the "false 
horizon".

Nice write-up!  |:-)>    (LhM w/ mortar board & goatee)

====
Nick
====


---------------------

From: carlf@panix.com (Carl Fink)
Subject: CHAOS, by James Gleick
Message-ID: <199309110117.AA17394@panix.com>
Date: 10 Sep 93 17:17:02 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1634

f6ri@midway.uchicago.edu (charles gregory fried) writes in part:

>Tim:
>I agree largely with what Henk said in the last Daily about
>shamans (yes, that is the correct plural, Henk! ;) ).  Note
>however that gods more powerful than those who are the source of
>spirit cults do recruit shamans too, though -- gods like Daka
>Fal and Thed and Malia.  These shaman-cults do not allow
>rune-lords however, and this fits.  In my campaign, I have
>allowed a shaman to become a priest to a local mminor god she
>discovered.  In general, the relation of shamans to gods should
>be mutual distrust and/or indifference, with rare exceptions
>role-played out by you.  NEVER allow them to become rune
>lords!

  Note that some of the most powerful gods have shamans as
priests.  Kyger Litor and Aldrya have both rune lords and
shamans, although one person cannot be both at the same time.


C442196@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu (Newton Hughes) writes:

>Some Glorantha questions:

>1.  The subject of Vinga brings to mind Babeestor Gor and Gorgorma -
>      What is the defining difference between those 2 anyway?  (The
>      cult write-up of Babeestor Gor at the soda site seemed to
>      endow her with attributes more appropriate to Gorgorma.)

  Gorgorma is the defender of peasants and rape victims.  Babeester
Gor defends Earth temples, mothers, and children.

>2.  Considering that Glorantha is flat, how far can someone see
>      on the ocean?  Since the ban on sea travel that Dormal's ritual
>      negates takes effect when the vessel is out of sight of land,
>      the obvious question is, how far is this?  How far can someone
>      standing on the top of Vent in Caladraland see?
>

  According to Sandy Petersen, with a good enough Farsee you can see
from the Rockwood Mountains to Pamaltela.  Good question about the Ban
destroying ships that are "out of sight" of land -- I don't think
anyone else has ever caught this!  That'll have to be reworded.



76360.1173@CompuServe.COM (Charlie Domino 76360,1173) writes:

>       Regarding the riding and herding of their totemic beasts:  This
>is a point on which I disagree with the published lore (I think it's
>from WF and Genertela).  Supposedly, the nomadic tribes do NOT eat
>their own beast, they raise the herds for riding animals, milk, etc. 
>Their staple of meat comes from hunting and the raiding of OTHER
>tribes herd animals.  I can't see this, as it means a choice between a
>constant state of warfare between the tribes, or starvation.  Granted,
>some food they eat is not meat, but grain, etc. exacted as tribute
>from locations like Horn Gate, plus roots, berries, etc. I *can* see
>them constantly raiding each other's herds for additional meat, or
>more heavily during times of hardship; I just can't see other tribes
>as their sole meat source.  If that were the case, social controls
>would soon dissolve, and all out warfare to someone's extinction would
>quickly take place.  Then population would start building back towards
>the limit the area could support and the cycle would repeat.
 
  You're assuming that eating meat is necessary or positive.  It isn't. 
Real animal-herding nomads, from the Mongols to the Ancient Hebrews
(both my ancestors) lived mainly on milk and cheese from their animals
together with gathered plant products, and only slaughtered animals on
special occasions.  Since the animals don't breed fast, it would be
impossible to live on meat from one's herds exclusively.
                                          

---------------------

From: MOBTOTRM@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au
Subject: Round the World
Message-ID: <01H2TPG1AQW6AC3D5Q@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au>
Date: 12 Sep 93 00:14:36 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1635

PAUL REILLY WRITES:
>2.  Considering that Glorantha is flat, how far can someone see
>      on the ocean?

>  At last, a physics question! :-)=    ( beard indicates Lhankor Mhy mode)
>Your question can perhaps best be answered by referring to the 
>treatise "On the Properties of the Elements", by Clement Longhair of the
>Nochet Lhankor Mhy temple:

FROM THE NOCHET COLLECTANEA:
I Columbus Mercator shall not of course need to resort to rank insults to 
prove my argument, unlike my unworthy colleague Clement Longhair, 
whose beard (I am reliably informed) is held on with paste.  I refer to 
my notes in Vol. XXIX of the Nochet Collectanea: 

"The shape of the earth *must* be spherical.For every one of its parts 
has weight until it reaches the center, and thus when a smaller part 
is pressed upon by a larger, it cannot surge around it, but each is 
packed close to, and combines with, the other until the reach the center.  

If particles are moving from all sides alike to one point, the center, the
resulting mass must be similar on all sides for an equal quantity is added
all round: the extremity must be at a constant distance from the 
center.  

Such a shape is a sphere... further proof is obtained from the evidence
of our senses: the world must have the shape its own shadow shows; for
its perfectly circular outline produces eclipses of the Red Moon."
I must therefore conclude that the true shape of the Earth Rune is
 not in fact a square or cube, but a SPHERE!


In order to prove this I plan a great journey of circumnavigation around the
world.  Once I find an agreeable captain, the boat shall set sail from Nochet
and travel east, only to appear at some indeterminate time in the west.
Many sailors fear that they would sail off the edge of the world, despite 
my assurances.  But when the ship undoubtedly appears again on the western
horizon, its mast will be seen first, not because light "bends" as Clement
Longhair would have it, but because the world is round, not flat!

_____--
MOB